Famous Forgery Case

In February 2007, Italian senator Marcello Dell'Utri claimed that diaries, covering the years from 1935 to 1939 had been found. Moreover, he claimed in the newspaper Corriere della Sera, these Mussolini diaries were with a lawyer at Bellinzona, in the Italian-speaking part of Switzerland. He said he examined the diaries and found that the "handwriting is clear and recognisably" that of Mussolini, though "a bit hurried". Dell'Utri stated that his claim was supported by an unknown handwriting expert. He said further that the diaries had been found in a suitcase the dictator was carrying when he was caught by partisans in Dongo, at Lake Como, while he was fleeing to Switzerland in April 1945. The books had been hidden by one of the partisans who had died recently.
These diaries occasioned much interest among historians, as it appeared that Mussolini reluctantly brought Italy into World War II and that he had tried to prevent the war. The diaries were also received with scepticism as they had not been authenticated independently. This scepticism was made more acute by memories of the 1957 forgery and the forged Hitler diaries case in 1983.
Later in February two Italian historians Emilio Gentile and Roberto Travaglini independently discovered that these diaries were indeed forged. The historians claim that these diaries had been around for some time and that someone had tried to sell these diaries to journalists before offering them to Dell'Utri. According to Gentile, the diaries contain "historical errors" and that the authors "seem to have copied various articles from old newspapers", and according to Travaglini ""there were too many elements that did not match up"".
Marcello Dell'Utri is the owner of the diaries and still claims them to be authentic.

Interest in handwriting were not first recorded until around 330 B.C, when Aristotle noted that handwriting was related to personality:

Aristotole

Speech is the expression of ideas, thoughts or desires. Handwriting is the visible form of speech. Somewhere in handwriting is an expression of the emotions underlying the writer’s thoughts, ideas, or desires. (Aristotle)

In the year of 1621 the first published work of handwrriting was found writen by an italian docter by the name of, Camillo Baldi, his tretise was writen on handwriting and character.Baldi thought handwriting was a manifestation of the writer’s temperament, personality and character.

In the late 1842 the French monk Jean Hippolyte Michon (considered to be the grandfather of modern graphology) spent years investigating thousands of samples and published a catalog on graphological signs. He coined the term “graphologie” and founded the Societe de Graphologie, which is still one of the leading institutions for the study of graphology at the university level.

In 1888, Jules-Crepieux Jamin (France) was Michon’s successor and disciple and published a study on how handwriting traits (how and what you write) influence interpretation of writing.

In 1895, the Physiology Professor Dr. Wilhelm T. Preyer (Germany) related graphic movement (writing) to mental processes. He was the first to coin the term “brain writing.”

In 1904, the psychologist Alfred Binet (France) affirmed the reliability of handwriting analysis in a published study and later developed the first standardized IQ test.

In 1910, the German Psychologist and Philosopher, Dr. Luddwig Klages, formulated a theory that handwritng had a general common rhythm as did walking and facial expressions.

In 1934, the Psychologist Dr. Max Pulver (Switzerland) showed how conscious and unconscious drives are indicated in handwriting.

It was in the early 1900’s that the American newspaperwoman, Louise Rice, brought Graphology to the United States upon her return to the United States after a European assignment. Today, Graphology is on the rise in the United States, Italy, Spain, Hungary, Poland, Iceland, Great Britain and Russia.

Class Work

Hand writing analysis consist of examining handwriting's (of two or three people) to see how they look similar and how they look different. For example in class a group experiment was done to test and see how well we could forge a classmates hand writing by writing a sentence that has every letter in the alphbet in it so your group has an idea of what your letters look like. Once you got that down then you switch paers and try to copy each others hand writing, then you try to trace it. our results were not so good for some but i could forge a signiture very well.

Newspaper headline

A State and Federal Case

Clifford was up to his neck in legal problems. There was a wealth of evidence now available that made for a potentially damaging case against him. There was evidence that Clifford had committed the federal offense of mail fraud, based on the forged letters sent to McGraw-Hill. Moreover, there was also evidence that he had violated state laws by obtaining money under false pretenses and committing perjury by lying in a sworn affidavit about his role in the hoax. Therefore, Clifford as well as his accomplices who faced similar charges, was to face an investigation by two grand juries in New York, one investigating the obstruction of state laws and the other to investigate a violation of federal laws. 

During the month of February, Clifford and his accomplices confronted both grand juries. A vast amount of evidence against Clifford, Edith and Suskind was presented in both cases. The juries viewed the forged letters and the checks cashed by Edith. They also heard testimony from experts who examined the documents involved, as well as testimony given by Suskind about his role in the affair. Moreover, those who were directly and indirectly exploited in the hoax testified before the jury, with the exception of Howard Hughes, who was enroute to Nicaragua.

Britannia Hotel, Nassau, Bahamas

 

Howard moved from his long-time residence in the Bahamas following an investigation by Bahamian immigration officials. It was believed that some of Howard’s staff had bypassed registration for work permits and immigration procedures, which were necessary for them to live and work in the Bahamas. Bahamian officials were allegedly alerted to Howard’s unregistered staff during the controversy concerning Clifford’s book. Thus, according to Fay, Chester and Linklater, Howard became an unsuspecting victim of Clifford’s grand hoax.  

On March 13, Clifford, Edith and Suskind appeared before the grand jury and pleaded guilty to their roles in the literary fraud. They made a complete confession before the federal jury and revealed the entire scheme behind the hoax. Following their declaration of guilt, further testimony was heard from several more witnesses, including that from Baroness Nina van Pallandt.

After listening to approximately one hundred witnesses, the federal jurors assessed the evidence before indicting the defendants. At about the same time, state jurors were also in the process of charging Clifford, Edith and Suskind. The state charged all three defendants on fourteen criminal counts, including possession of forged documents, intent to defraud, grand larceny for stealing monies from McGraw-Hill, perjury and conspiracy. Moreover, the federal grand jury indicted Clifford and Edith on two counts of mail fraud.    

On June 16, 1972 following a federal court hearing, Clifford and Edith were both found guilty and sentenced. Clifford received a two-and-a-half year sentence in a federal prison, whereas Edith received a total of two years. However, according to Clifford Irving’s book, most of Edith’s sentence was suspended and she served only two months in New York’s Nassau County Jail. Irving further stated that the Swiss authorities eventually caught up with Edith and sentenced her to two years in prison. Dick Suskind was sentenced by the state of New York to a half-year in prison, in which he only served five months for good conduct. On top of their sentences, they were ordered to pay back a total of more than $750,000 to Clifford’s publisher.

 

According to a CBS interview with Clifford by Mike Wallace in 2000, Clifford caused as much trouble during his stint in prison as he had prior to his sentencing. Clifford stated that he was put in three different institutions due to his bad behavior. He claimed to have been kicked out of Allenwood Penitentiary after being, “caught with a bottle of gin.” He then was placed into solitary confinement in Lewisburg penitentiary and eventually “dispelled” for not fitting in. Finally, Clifford stated that he was sent to a penitentiary in Danbury, Connecticut, where he was accused of plotting to kill a warden and provoke a prison riot.

In February 1974, Clifford was released after spending a total of seventeen months in prison. To date he’s continued with his writing and has authored approximately a dozen books. According to the CBS interview, the almost seventy-year-old Clifford currently spends his time traveling between New Mexico and Mexico. The infamous autobiography that he had written was finally published in 1999 on the internet

Famous murder case

Caught By A Hair

In 1990 in Telluride, Colorado, Eva Shoen's young daughter found her dead from a single gunshot to her head.  Her husband, Sam, came under suspicion, but he truly appeared to be the grieving, shocked husband, a victim of random violence.  The police were confident they would solve the case, because the bullet taken from Eva's skull had the distinct markings of a particular type of pistol.  However, the case eventually found its way into the cold cases file.  There just were no leads.
Three years later, the Telluride police received a call from a man in Arizona who believed that his own brother, Frank Marquis, had been the perpetrator.  Marquis had once confessed this crime, but an attempt to trap him during a phone conversation failed.  Nevertheless, when the gun was recovered, an arrest seemed a sure thing.  Unfortunately, Marquis had covered his tracks all too well—including tampering with the barrel of the gun so that the bullet fired from it could not be matched.  All they had on him was a hearsay conversation.
However, tracing Marquis's movements indicated that he had indeed been in Telluride during that weekend for a festival, and that he had a police record for rape.  This was the man, the detectives felt, and they had to find a way to get him.  Putting pressure on Marquis' travel companion, they learned that at some point along the road back, Marquis had tossed two bundles out the window of the car.  They suspected that this was the clothing he had worn to commit the crime.  Still, it was a long and winding road between Telluride and the point where Marquis had ended his journey some four hundred miles away.
Detectives scoured the roadway until they narrowed the possibilities down to four places.  As luck had it, a construction crew had recently moved a pile of dirt, exposing a bundle of clothing that the dirt had preserved.  On the shirt was a single strand of hair, which was examined in the lab against a sample taken from Eva Shoen.  Forensic trace expert Joseph Snyder analyzed the color and structure, and pronounced them a close match. 
When the investigators told Marquis of their findings, he confessed.  It was a bungled burglary, he said, indicating his knowledge of the plea-bargaining system.  Although the officers in charge of the case believed that he had in fact planned to rape Eva Shoen and had killed her in the process, they knew that this would be impossible to prove.  Marquis got a sentence of twenty-four years for manslaughter. 
Sometimes a single strand of hair will make all the difference between a case closing down and a lead that opens it in an entirely new direction.

By: Kathrine Ramsland

Importance of Hair and Fibers

Most hair comparisons deal with either head or pubic hair. If collecting head hair, a representative sampling can usually by obtained with about 50 full-length hairs. Approximately two dozen full-length pubic hairs are needed for a good sample. It is necessary to collect the entire length of each strand of hair, because a hair can show variation in color or other physical characteristics throughout the strand. If either the size of the collection or the length of each piece of hair falls below the minimum, it can be very difficult or impossible to form any connections based on these pieces of evidence.

When collecting fibers, careful examination of all fiber carriers is imperative. As this evidence cannot usually be seen with the naked eye, it is important to have somebody at the scene to specifically look for these clues. Each piece of clothing that could contain relevant fibers should be bagged separately in paper bags. Every item must be bagged separately to avoid the chance of cross-contaminating the evidence. Likewise, all articles such as carpets, rugs, and bedding should be individually folded and packaged to protect fiber evidence. If a fiber must be removed to keep it best preserved, it should be removed with forceps and placed in a small sheet of paper. Once that has been folded and labeled, it should be put in another container for safekeeping. The importance of properly collecting and preserving fibers cannot be stressed enough, as failure to follow necessary procedures could highly contaminate the evidence. This, in turn, can highly decrease the chances of finding the critical evidence needed for solving a case.

Fiber Lifting Techniques

Before trace evidence can be identified, it must be collected. When a crime is committed, crime scene investigators typically use special lights to find trace evidence that is not obvious to the naked eye. After locating a fiber or other trace material, crime scene investigators photograph it and collect it using techniques such as ‘lifting’ it with special lifting tape or collecting the sample with forceps. They also document the location of the sample and begin a meticulous record of the individuals who handle or transport the evidence as it makes its way to the forensic laboratory, where trace evidence identification occurs. Protection of trace evidence from loss or contamination is essential to ensure that it can be used in a court of law if need be.